A teenager forced to rummage through skips and sleep in graveyards for more than a year after becoming homeless has turned his life around.

Paul Matthews is now well on his way to forging a career with the Royal Engineers.

The 19-year-old has told his story of how he went from “rock bottom” to completing Be The Best, an Army residential course, and is now hopeful of winning his place with the corps before becoming a carpenter.

Paul grew up in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, before he became homeless between the ages of 15 and 17.

During that time, he began to use Pant Cemetery, Merthyr, as a place for safety and would find abandoned gravesites with gaps in the stones to bed down in.

He said: “I had to find somewhere to sleep. I wanted to stay close to where I grew up.

Paul Matthews is now well on his way to forging a career with the Royal Engineers (Image: Wales Online)

"I was still young and didn’t really have any friends or anything, it was scary.”

He said being homeless had a huge effect on his mentality, wellbeing and health.

He added: “I was really, really skinny - under six stone when I weighed myself at the end of it all. I haven’t been able to put much weight on since, either.

“It made me lose a lot of confidence in myself.

"People would see me as dirty and I looked so scruffy. It really brought me down.”

Paul said it showed him that he had to get his life back on track and he added: “It helped me grow up a lot and proved to me that I didn’t want that sort of life for my kids.”

Paul, a former Bishop Hedley High School pupil, then heard about the Be the Best course, run by 160 Wales Brigade, from the job centre, which he began to visit after moving in with a friend.

The week-long residential course, which was launched last year and enrols around 150 participants annually, includes activity, teaching leadership skills, first aid, team building techniques, fitness and adventure training.

Paul would wake up, wash in the river and then just walk around Merthyr town (Image: Wales Online)

The courses are all delivered in Sennybridge and Crickhowell and Neil Martin, course director, said: “The course, which is not an army recruitment scheme, can change the life of people like Paul.

“We just try to help them and show them all of the opportunities that are available, from policemen to bomb disposal workers to divers.

“Paul came on the course because he didn’t have enough confidence to join the army, and right away I saw there was something about him.

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“He’s a quality individual and gave 100% throughout, and at the end, didn’t want to go home.”

Mr Martin said he was confident Paul would begin training for the Royal Engineers later this year and added: “He really is a quality individual who has had a tough upbringing, but he has never used drugs or been in trouble with the law and is just someone who fell through the cracks.”

"If I had given up like I wanted to, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It’s about picking yourself up.

“The staff at the course have been fantastic and I’d like to thank them. It has shown me what I want to do in life and given me the kick up the butt that I needed.”

Martin Brown, the work services director for Wales, said: “The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is fully supportive of this course and it’s fantastic to see how this has given individuals like Paul the opportunity to turn their lives around.

“This is a great example of collaborative working with the Ministry of Defence and the benefit this brings to DWP customers.”